Optical detection systems are generally employed in a wide variety of different analytical operations. For example, simple multi-well plate readers have been ubiquitously employed in analyzing optical signals from fluid based reactions that were being carried out in the various wells of a multiwell plate. These readers generally monitor the fluorescence, luminescence or chromogenic response of the reaction solution that results from a given reaction in each of 96, 384 or 1536 different wells of the multiwell plate.
Other optical detection systems have been developed and widely used in the analysis of analytes in other configurations, such as in flowing systems, i.e., in the capillary electrophoretic separation of molecular species. Typically, these systems have included a fluorescence detection system that directs an excitation light source, e.g., a laser or laser diode, at the capillary, and is capable of detecting when a fluorescent or fluorescently labeled analyte flows past the detection region (see, e.g., ABI 3700 Sequencing systems, Agilent 2100 BioAnalyzer and ALP systems, etc.)
Still other detection systems direct a scanning laser at surface bound analytes to determine where, on the surface, the analytes have bound. Such systems are widely used in molecular array based systems, where the positional binding of a given fluorescently labeled molecule on an array indicates a characteristic of that molecule, e.g., complementarity or binding affinity to a given molecule (See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,578,832).
Notwithstanding the availability of a variety of different types of optical detection systems, the development of real-time, highly multiplexed, single molecule analyses has given rise to a need for detection systems that are capable of detecting large numbers of different events, at relatively high speed, and that are capable of deconvolving potentially complex, multi-wavelength signals. The present invention meets these and a variety of other needs.